South African shrubs and trees for the garden. The Cactus File Handbook 5: Pachypodium and Adenium. Mededelingen Landbouwhogeschool, Wageningen, Netherlands 80,12: 1-40. The South African What flower is that? Struik, Cape Town. Botanical Society of South Africa, Cape Town. Transvaal lowveld and escarpment including the Kruger National Park. Southern African Botanical Diversity Network Report No. Cactus and Succulent Journal (US) 63: 223-226. Adenium culture in hot climates or greenhouses. Succulent flora of southern Africa, revised edn. Use pesticides carefully as adeniumsare sensitive to some. Indoors or in containers, mealy bugs, spider mites, aphids and whiteflies often infest plants. Pests rarely damage adeniums grown outdoors. The use of a well-drained potting medium will prevent most problems with rotting. Seedlings usually grow through the first winter before obligate dormancy appears.Īdenium multiflorum is susceptible to root rot when watered too frequently during cool weather or if chronically water-logged at any time. Treating seeds with a fungicide before sowing reduces loss. Growing plants from seed is easy and seeds germinate in about a week at 30º C. Grafting is also an effective method and more reliable than cuttings. Cuttings should preferably be tip-cuttings dipped in a rooting hormone and stuck into a coarse rooting medium and kept well watered. Larger plants can be obtained from nurseries. Propagation is by seed (the only means in the wild) and vegetative propagation by cuttings or grafting. Care should be taken to avoid damage to the fleshy, brittle roots when repotting. Adeniums are surprisingly adaptable to cultivation and this adaptatbility includes adjusting their growth cycles to match the reversed seasons in the northern hemisphere (Rowley 1999). Over-watering and fertilization combined with inadequate light or poor air movement may lead to weak, elongated growth. The potting mix must provide excellent drainage and aeration. The growth of root-bound plants is greatly inhibited and plants should be re-potted until they reach the desired size. Plants need ample root space for rapid growth. Expanding terminal buds signal the end of dormancy and watering can then be increased. Watering should be drastically reduced and stopped when the plants are in full dormancy. Dormancy can be detected when water consumption declines or when the leaves suddenly turn yellow. Inadequate watering and feeding are the primary causes of slow growth in adeniums.Īdeniums must be grown in containers in climates with frost or cool, wet winters. Add slow-release fertilizer and micronutrients to potting mediums. Plants respond well to regular and generous fertilizing. Plants require high light intensity and temperatures of around 30º C, hot weather preferably accompanied by moderate to high humidity. Keep the potting mix wet in temperatures of 30º C. Water the plants well during hot weather. At the Shingwedzi Camp in the Kruger National Park some exceptional specimens can be seen. obesum in availability, mainly because of its slower growth rate and shorter blooming season. This taxon is seen in cultivation, but is a distant second to A. Plants grow vigorously from seed, but rarely flower until they are four to five years old. As container plants they may be kept in cooler places, but do not water them when they are dormant and protect the plants against frost. They are ideal subjects for a dry rockery, giving a warm colourful display of bright flowers in winter. In the garden they are not plants for cold or damp areas. EcologyĪdenium multiflorum grows well in warm, well-drained situations where the soil is sandy. oleifolium grows in Limpopo, Northern Cape, Namibia and Botswana. A swazicum, a much smaller plant that flowers in summer that usually has pinkish flowers, is found in Mpumalanga and Swaziland. boehmianum occurs in the northern parts of Namibia. The three other species of Adenium that are found naturally in southern Africa are A. In the latest revision, it was raised to species level again. Rowley considered it a subspecies of a very closely related but more northerly distributed species, A. The Latin specific epithet refers to the multitude of flowers produced by this plant. multiflorum in1861 from material collected in Mozambique. The genus name is derived from the vernacular name for Adenium obesum, namely Oddaeyn, or from Aden, where A. In the most recent revision by Plazier, only five species are recognized. Schultes established the genus Adenium in 1819 and up to 12 species have been described.
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